The [Conservative] Government seemed hopeless and confused and without purpose... Unfortunately, the men who ought to be awake were slumbering, and i… - David Lloyd George

I come now to the question of reparation. Are the terms we have imposed unjust to Germany? If the whole cost of the War, all the costs incurred by every country that has been forced into war by the action of Germany, had been thrown upon Germany, it would have been in accord with every principle of civilised jurisprudence in the world. There was but one limit to the justice and the wisdom of the reparation we claimed, and that was the limit of Germany's capacity to pay. ... Is there anything unjust in imposing upon Germany those payments? I do not believe anyone could claim it to be unjust. Certainly no one could claim that it was unjust unless he believed that the justice of the War was on the side of Germany.

Our bane throughout those early periods of the War was the incurable tendency of a number of people in high places to argue that measures vitally necessary for the success of our effort could not, for some reason or other, be taken. Thus we were told that the outside firms could not learn to make munitions; that the finances of the country could not stand the strain of our total effort, that the men needed for our Army could not be spared from industry; that gunners could not be trained to operate our programme of big guns; that the country would not stand conscription; that volunteers would not fight beside pressed men; and so on. Every one of these arguments was falsified by the event. Unhappily, each one of these objections served for a greater or less time to hold up and paralyse the efforts we should have been making to win the War. The advice of these prophets of the impossible cost us months and years of prolonged warfare, and hundreds and thousands of British lives.

If it is a question of setting up an independent Irish Republic in this small group of islands, that is a thing we could only accept if we were absolutely beaten to the ground. We take the same view exactly of the position as President Lincoln took of the attempt of the Southern States to claim secession. There were men in this country who thought he ought to have recognised the Southern States. Lincoln, one of the greatest democratic figures who ever lived in the world, took a different view. History has justified Lincoln. I have met Southerners whose fathers fought and suffered for what they regarded as liberty, who now admit that Lincoln was right. Therefore it is no use my giving any hope that it is even possible to discuss any policy of reconciliation which involves the recognition of an independent Republic of Ireland.